China’s Financial Diplomacy in the Xi Jinping Era : South Korea’s Response

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to ask what explains Beijing’s enthusiastic efforts in cementing economic cooperation between South Korea and China. In this context, this paper examines whether there are any coherent China’s strategic rationale for the new economic initiative that are evidently introduced during President Xi Jinping’s Seoul visit in July 2014, and the series of follow-up meetings of top-officials between the two countries.China claims the relations with ROK significant and assesses its visit as dianxuefangwen or dotted special visit catered for solely enhancing the bilateral relations between the two countries. This paper however suggests that the resurgence of the bilateral relations is largely related to the broader Chinese “strategic-thinking” in directly responding to the structural adjustment in international politics. In other words, Beijing’s effort in reinforcing strategic relations with South Korea is not uncorrelated to the broader strategic hedging behaviors between the United States and China